Baseball America released their organizational rankings today, with the Cardinals unsurprisingly claiming the top spot. The Mariners and Rangers round out the top three while Angels bring up the rear and rank 30th. The list is free for all.

The Yankees placed 11th in the rankings, which is exactly where they were in the preliminary rankings back in January. “In (Mason) Williams, (Gary) Sanchez, (Slade) Heathcott and (Tyler) Austin, the Yankees have some quality replacements on the way for the lineup — but they’re not going to be ready in time to help this year. Many of their top pitching prospects (Campos, Banuelos, Hensley) have health questions that detract from their upside,” said the publication in their subscriber-only write-up. Pretty typical, everything seems fair to me.

So silly about the Angles, and shows how these rankings always need to be taken with a grain of salt….their ML roster is stacked, and they have graduated real quality to the ML over the past two years.

by the time Weaver, Hamilton, Puljos, Trout, Trumbo, Wilson etc. begin to slow down, there will be 2-3 more draft classes in their system, and the number will likely turn around,.

Laz

Isn’t silly if you look at it right. Is an indicator of Milb talent, ignoring the MLB roster.

And I wouldn’t say they are stacked. Sure they look good, but Hamilton has a ton of injury problems, and Weaver is the only thing holding the Angels’ rotation above water.

Laz

And the Yankees appear to be better than the 10 teams ahead of them in ml talent.

CONservative governMENt

Really hoping they follow through on this bridge year and let the prospects get a year closer.

With Campos, DePaula, Hensley and Ramirez making the leap plus the draft pick haul the farm system will be stacked three months from now.

And the fiscal responsibility push has the added benefit of turning off the bandwagon fans, which is always nice.

Robinson Tilapia

100% agree.

What you see now, in its own bizzarre way, is this team committing to youth. I’m willing to put up with this strange year in order to get there.

Getting more than one of these guys entering AA to graduate to the bigs, getting those pitchers to the cups on the bigs, then graduating them, and resetting the celery cap in order to augment with guys outside the system….this is how you attempt to remake a franchise that can’t be the franchise of the Core Four + Alex forever.

jjyank

Which is kind of why I find all the “PLAY TEH KIDS!” declarations a bit amusing. From what I can see, the team is holding off on trades and signing older vets to short term deals so they can do just that. Trying to bridge the gap between now and the wave of prospects in 1-3 years.

Not that this guarantees anything. But it seems to be as decent a strategy as any considering the current roster construction.

Robinson Tilapia

Michael Kay had an actual moment of clarity on the radio the other day when someone asked him just that. His reply was, “why do you think they’re playing the veterans? They’re playing them because they don’t think the kids in AAA can do it. They think the guys in A and AA can, but they’re not ready yet.”

jjyank

Yep. Seems like the plan to me. That’t probably what I would decide as well.

CONservative governMENtCO

If the opp

CONservative governMENt

If the opportunity to get a young star (Stanton) comes up then I’d be fine with trading prospects, but otherwise I’m ok with a season without the pressure of being favorites.

The Big City of Dreams

The thing is there is pressure regardless. This is a fan base that freaks out over ST games.

jsbrendog

see, i dont know if i would. is it worth giving up team control of 3-4 players who will, supposedly, be ML players and help you win for 1 who will only have a yr or 2 of team control yet and then reqwuire an arodian contract?

Trisha

Hardly.

The average age of the Yankee roster is nearly 31, and for a number of years, has been the oldest in baseball. After this “strange” year, we are going to see a refreshed, youthful roster? How is that going to happen?

Teixiera, Cano (if he’s on the team), Arod, Jeter, etc. will all be a year older. And I think we have seen an established track record by the front office of preferring to sign or trade for over-the-hill ex-stars, as opposed to unknowns from their system. How does that change next season, or the season after, or the one after that?

I suppose the assumption is that Heathcott, Williams, Austin, Campos, De Paula, and Ramirez will all become everyday regulars at the Major League level, and Cashman & Levine won’t deal any of them in the next 2-3 years. Yeah…

Need Pitching & Hitting (but mostly hitting)

They likely won’t deal all of those players.
And the ones they do deal will likely be for somewhat younger players.

Trisha

Exactly. So maybe one, two, of them become full time players if we’re lucky? We trade a few for one, maybe two, players in their late 20’s, and then continue to sign veteran ex-stars once Tex, Jeter, A-rod are done/quit? It puts us in no different position than we are in now. By then Gardner will be on the wrong side of 30, etc.

Do you see how it works now? Until an entirely different approach is taken (i.e. we stop entering into long term deals with guys like Cano, etc. when they are up for free agency, and actually draft numerous good players to come up from the system to become regular major leaguers, nothing will change.

Need Pitching & Hitting (but mostly hitting)

Having 4-5 lineup spots potentially taken by quality players under 30 is very different than the situation they are in now (just Cano and Gardner). They can afford to have some veteran players, they just need a better balance. If you are going to wait for an all/mostly good young team to emerge, chance are you are going to be waiting a very long time. Most low-mid payroll teams in baseball try that. Most are unsuccessful.
The benefit of being able to field a $200M+ payroll is they can afford 2-3 tail ends of contracts with declining production as long as they have some good, cheap players mixed in. The biggest issue with the current roster construction is the balance has tipped too much to highly paid declining players, and most of the young/cheap players play relatively minor roles.
If they permanently exit the long-term contract market, they’ll be left to only sign old guys on short-term deals and hope to develop another great young core. The odds of frequent long-term success with that model isn’t great – most teams try it and fail. And their will be many lean years in the mean time.

Cool Lester Smooth

Do you know how you “actually draft numerous good players?”

You lose. A lot of games.

jsbrendog

just let her go…

The Big City of Dreams

And the fiscal responsibility push has the added benefit of turning off the bandwagon fans, which is always nice.

———————-

The bandwagon fan will be back once they get good again.

Robinson Tilapia

That’s why we’re keeping track.

The Big City of Dreams

lol how many are on the list already

pat

You know who else kept lists?

Reggie C.

Cashman’s legacy will be affected by the number of major league caliber players that come from this crop of prospects. Frankly, we’ll be pretty lucky if this High-A/ Low-A crop yields two multiple All-Star. Its the dream.

jsbrendog

no, no it won’t. cashman’s legacy will be only missing the playoffs once or twice inhis tenure and winning multiple ws and losing in a couple more.

in 20 yrs no one will remember he traded montero or he did a or b.

Keav

One thing with the “play the vets in order to save the kids” argument:

It’s not that the Yanks see the Musteliers and Mesas as cornerstone players, nor do they need to be. But it’s the “let’s sign Juan Rivera and Ben Francisco” type of decisions that drive me crazy.

You can’t tell me that these guys can’t do the same job for two months, while promoting some type of hope for the non-Super prospect section of your farm system.

You might as well get rid of the Mesa’s and Almonte’s and Musty’s of the world if you aren’t going to use them this season.

Think about it: What do they actually have to do to make your ML roster? It’s not as if you are asking them to hit 3rd or win rookie of the year. They would be platoon advantage players for a month and a half. You aren’t asking them to be great, but then, you aren’t asking Juan Rivera or Ben Fransisco to be great either (mostly because they have sucked and no one else wanted them).

Overall, I’m happy with the team and the organization. I’m actually a proponent of the $189 plan. I started watching the team when they were really bad, so I’m fully prepared to deal with down years. It’s just their refusal to use the non-Super prospects, but seemingly trip over themselves to sign below average major leaguers who might’ve been good 4 years ago.

Captain

yes Mustelier and Mesa aren’t cornerstone players but you know what they are? insurance plans on the Rivera/Francisco type of deals. you take the chance with the players that have done it at the ML level before over the ones with minor league options left who haven’t been to the top level. those first two guys will probably get a chance this year but there’s no need to drop them on the Opening Day roster with no fallback plan behind them.

awy

seems like some fans think that there is a correlation between fantype and fan opinion about the state of the yankees:

bandwagon fans : real fans :: omg everything sucks : short pain for long gain, everything is under control

this is missing legitimate criticism about the team’s direction over the past couple years.

Fact remains, baseball is in the midst of a revenue boom with regional network and media revenue going up. within this context is also the cost cutting measures of IFA and draft budget restrictions. the most logical move would be to get as much relatively cheap and young talent from the IFA market back when it was still in business.

Cutting cost and getting more efficient is fine, but the key idea is that efficiency has to come before cost cutting. You need to have the efficient production actually in place, otherwise it’s just putting the cart before the donkey, because the lost revenue from having a bad year is pretty huge. The yankees’ 2013 woes is a direct consequence of their not having this production in place, more so than the cost cutting. their inexplicable conservative stance on many key IFA talents over the past few years have deprived them of a large pool of efficient production.

If we properly understand the focus of the game as EFFICIENCY rather than cost cutting, then a below market contract signed in 2011 is just as helpful as one signed in 2014. Missing opportunities to take on good assets for a self imposed “salary goal” is either stupid or disingenuous.

Need Pitching & Hitting (but mostly hitting)

+1

CONservative governMENt

There is truth in what you say (I was frustrated over Cespedes, Darvish, Sano…) and I think the 2014 budget incentive came at a tough time, but they can’t go back in time and retroactively sign these guys, so I am fine with how this offseason has been handled (other than making a QO to Martin).

I just think the bill has come due.

Need Pitching & Hitting (but mostly hitting)

You would pay Martin $13M+ for one season.
I would have preferred they kept him, but not at that price. Much better ways to spend that money.

Trisha

Like spending on two years of Vernon Wells.

Need Pitching & Hitting (but mostly hitting)

Even worse way to spend the money.

Cool Lester Smooth

Getting Vernon Wells for free next year is a pretty decent deal.

awy

self hypnotism

jsbrendog

no, fact. getting any ml player for free is a good deal because, there is absolutely zero risk.hell they can even cut him this yr if he is that bad once grandy gets back who cares and bring up mesa/mustelier like everyone wants

Captain

the people want Mustelier to get started on his ROY campaign early!

awy

your mastery of logic is only rivaled by your eagerness to condemn the infidels

awy

so if you buy one apple for 1 million dollars and the 2nd one comes free by way of a buy one get one free deal, it’s a good deal?

Cool Lester Smooth

The money doesn’t matter this year

awy

so you want to pay 13m for a replacement level player for one year, because you can get him for free the next year.

repeat yourself some more maybe i’ll be convinced that this is flawless logic

Chris

If they miss the playoffs twice every 18 years then I am fine with that.

I am a Yankee fan. A baseball fan. Not a we need the best guy at every position or I am going to throw a temper tantrum and call WFAN to complain every 45 min fan….